


Tell Me A Story

by mrsfizzle



Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ending, F/M, Fix-It, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Post-Canon Fix-It, Romance, Sacrifice, Spies & Secret Agents, Sweet, The Intersect (Chuck)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:48:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28412673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsfizzle/pseuds/mrsfizzle
Summary: "The problem wasn't so much their relationship. The problem was Sarah herself. She'd changed so much over the five years Chuck had known her, and a few hours' worth of damage had taken all of that away. Hearing the stories wasn't the same as having the memories. It wasn't even close." An alternate ending to Chuck—because Bartowskis don't give up that easy.
Relationships: Chuck Bartowski & Ellie Bartowski Woodcomb, Chuck Bartowski & Morgan Grimes, Chuck Bartowski/Sarah Walker, Sarah Walker & Ellie Bartowski Woodcomb
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	1. Resolution

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Imjustapuff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imjustapuff/gifts).



> Happy birthday, Imjustapuff!

_You know, Morgan has this crazy idea._

_He thinks that with one kiss, you'll remember everything._

_One magical kiss._

That was what Chuck said to Sarah. Of course, it wasn't that simple. Nothing ever was.

Chuck told Sarah stories for days. She smiled and laughed, she teared up at the right moments, and she kissed him whenever he reached a good stopping point for the day. She agreed to come home with him and be his wife again, and she made friendly conversation with Chuck's friends and family. Her brutal honesty about what she'd been feeling when she first came to believe their relationship was futile gave him the confidence now to know she wasn't lying when she said she wanted to be with him.

But that didn't make it easy. Sarah was a shell of what she had once been. She didn't pull away from Chuck at night, but she didn't snuggle up to him, either. She had always carried weapons with her wherever she went, but her hand seemed to jerk toward it more often than it ever had, at least since Chuck had met her. And the way she talked to him was closer to the way she'd spoken when they were only pretending to date.

Sarah caught him staring off into space as often as he caught her. Once, she came up beside him, took his hand, and gently stroked his forearm. "It's going to take time," she told him.

"I know." His eyebrows knitted. "I just wish I could do more for you. You deserve so much better than this."

"Well." She took a step closer, squeezed his hand a little tighter. "Think of it this way. I get to fall in love with you all over again."

He made himself smile, and he turned to kiss her, and the kiss was almost like the ones he'd come to know. Almost.

If Chuck was honest with himself, though, the problem wasn't so much their relationship. The problem was Sarah herself. She'd changed so much over the five years Chuck had known her, and a few hours' worth of damage had taken all of that away. Hearing the stories wasn't the same as having the memories. It wasn't even close.

They'd had so many scares with the Intersect—Chuck had lost it and regained it again, it had been updated, it had been corrupted, it had been passed from one person to another. It caused people's personalities to change; it caused brain damage; it fixed the damage. But this time was different. This time, it had destroyed his wife.

This couldn't be the end—Chuck wasn't going to give up. That wasn't what Bartowskis did.

* * *

Chuck worked long nights, long after Sarah was asleep. Some mornings, Sarah would ask him how he slept, and she'd give him a pointed look if he tried to tell her he slept well. He eventually started admitting to her that he was having trouble sleeping—he didn't want to lie to her, not after everything they'd been through. She didn't press him for details. He supposed his sleeplessness was believable enough without an explanation.

By pulling a few strings, Chuck managed to get together a few things to help him in his work: some of the schematics of the original Intersect, minus the actual information it contained, of course, as well as a fully equipped electronics and computer tech lab. He needed to build a new Intersect.

Well, not exactly an Intersect. He didn't need Sarah to be able to Flash, so he wasn't interested in the part of the design that allowed the brain to function as a computer or pick up on signals or download new data on the go. Instead, he solely focused on imparting memories.

It turned out that that part was fairly easy, even easier than making someone Flash. The harder part was designing the memories themselves. It was easy to implant still images, text, and data. Even physical processes weren't terribly difficult to impart, although the muscle memory required a slightly different design.

But lived stories were more complicated. A video-like file wasn't enough, and even if it had been, videos were painfully difficult to implant in a person's mind because of the sheer amount of information they contained. Lived memories would take up less space—they weren't in high resolution or frame rate, and they didn't include every detail of any given moment—but they were linked with sensory and auditory and olfactory and emotional information that just couldn't easily be replicated.

Chuck's breakthrough came the night he was poring over his notes, one pencil between his teeth and another behind his ear. He was exasperated and exhausted, fast running out of ideas for how to replicate the human experience as a few lines of code, and he reflected that it would almost be easier to impart memories that were taken directly from another person.

So that was the direction he went. He knew it would still probably be a poor simulation—his own memories of Sarah never had his own face in them, only hers, whereas her memories would never have had his own face.

He tested his early models in the computer. Receiving information from the Intersect had always been a rather unpleasant experience; it turned out that taking information out of someone's mind would do even more brain damage. After a hundred or more simulations in which the memory donor died or became braindead, he finally succeeded in designing a protocol that would only focus on the particular neural pathways associated with the memories being taken at that moment, preventing any damage from spreading.

By the time he reached this point, Chuck had been at it for two months. He was running out of ways to tell her stories.

It was time to test the final Intersect.


	2. Test

Morgan was the first test dummy, of course. He and Chuck met in the computer lab. Morgan's fingers drummed against the armrest of his swivel chair.

"Thanks for doing this, buddy," Chuck said, preparing the probes and sensors. "It means a lot to me."

"Oh, don't even mention it. You know I'd do anything for you." Morgans fingers never stopped fidgeting. "Okay, we're doing this. We're doing this? Whoa, hey, that looks pointy."

"It's not gonna hurt you." Chuck taped the last of the probes to Morgan's temple.

"Yeah, but, like, if this was a movie, these would _definitely_ tell you, like, something was about to go wrong. You know, like, I'd be getting electrocuted or something. And you'd be a mad scientist, and I'd be—"

"These are just precautionary, Morgan. If there's a problem with my methods, these'll pick it up before there's any real damage."

"D-damage?"

Chuck winced. "Having second thoughts? Because I completely understand—"

"Oh, what, no, you kidding me? No way. I'm ready. Let's do this."

"Okay." Chuck had chosen a fairly innocuous memory for his first test, one that was both short and vivid. It was a moment from a week ago, when he'd been playing a video game and he'd lost at the last moment. He put on the new—hopefully, the last—pair of Intersect glasses, tapped the side, and relived the memory in his mind, recalling as many details as he could.

It took about a minute. It was impressively uncomfortable, and it left him with a strangely tingling headache, but it didn't _hurt,_ per se, though he found himself fairly disoriented when it was over. He handed the glasses over to Morgan.

Morgan took a deep breath and put on the glasses, and Chuck typed a few commands into his computer, then tapped the glasses. He glanced back and forth between Morgan's face and the screen. Morgan's eyes were wide, but he didn't react with any pain; according to the screen, his heart rate spiked, but there was no other signs that damage was being done.

Finally, Morgan let a breath out. Chuck took away the glasses.

" _Whoa._ " Morgan's eyes were still wide.

Chuck scooted a little closer with his chair. "C-could you see everything happening in your head? Like it was your own memory?"

"See it? Oh man, I could _feel_ it, that gut-wrenching moment of total, humiliating defeat— _Ah!_ That's so frustrating!"

"Oh yeah, it was—" Chuck frowned. He tried to recall the moment, but he couldn't pull it to the front of his mind. It was like trying to remember the details of a fuzzy dream that was fast fading into nothing. "Wait, how long ago was that?"

"Uh, I don't know. Maybe a week ago? It feels like it was a week ago. Is that right?"

Chuck nodded slowly. He could remember losing video games lots of times in his life, and he remembered that he was planning to give Morgan a memory about losing a video game, but as to the exact moment he'd passed to Morgan . . .

Chuck swallowed hard. "Ah, buddy? Slight flaw in the process."

"Really? 'Cause I'd say that went perfectly. I can remember that moment _exactly._ "

"Yeah, well . . . I can't."

* * *

Another month of tinkering with the machinery yielded the exact same results every time. To give a memory, cost a memory.

Of course, a memory _could_ be returned. But each time it was passed from one person to another, it lost a little of its vividness, until eventually, there was nothing left to pass. Meanwhile, there was nothing Chuck could do to prevent the donor's memory loss. He supposed he was lucky the damage was so minimal, both to the memory donor and receiver, but it was hard to be thankful for that when he had hit a brick wall in terms of his progress.

Three months since Sarah's memory erasure, and their relationship's progress seemed even slower than it had been in the first few months they'd know each other. As thankful as he was to have been relatively safe for awhile, the frequent near-death had experiences really spurred their relationship along the first time around.

Chuck took a day off and spent an evening at Ellie's to wind down. She sat down beside him on the couch when she could spare a few minutes for the baby. "You've been working on something," she said. "Do you have a new project?"

"Project? What? What makes you think . . ."

Ellie gave him a pointed look. Even after all these years, he was as terrible a liar as ever when he was looking his older sister right in the eyes.

Chuck sighed. "Ah, did—did Morgan say something?"

"No. I know you. Your head is in the clouds." She shifted herself in her seat so she was faced toward him, her elbow on the back of the couch and her head resting in her hand. "Are you trying to build a new Intersect?"

He let himself smile. Ellie knew him way too well—he only wished Sarah knew him that well. "I've built it. Well, basically."

Her eyes widened, and she blinked a couple of times. "Chuck, that's great!"

"It's not going to undo the brain damage."

"But—but you're going to be able to get Sarah her memories back, right?"

"Well, that's the problem. I could give her a—a kind of a photo album in her brain easily enough, but that's just the same as me telling her stories and showing her pictures."

"It's not enough." Ellie nodded.

"But transferring real, human memories, that's a lot harder."

"Well, don't give up. I'm sure there's a way."

"There is. Someone has to donate one of their own memories. And . . . the donor loses the memory."

"Oh." Her brow furrowed. "No way around it?"

"I've been trying, but so far, no."

"Well. Maybe you'll have to share your memories with her."

"What good does that do us? That just puts us in the same situation we're in now, only reversed."

"Well, don't give her _all_ of your memories, but . . . you two have spent a lot of time together over the past few years. How long did it take for you to start falling for her?"

"Uh, two seconds?"

Ellie smiled a little and rolled her eyes. "My point is, you have memories to spare. So take some time to figure out what you're going to pass on to her. Don't give her anything you can't live without, obviously, but . . . don't keep back anything _she_ can't live without."

Chuck nodded, slowly at first, then a little quicker. He threw his arms around his sister. "What would I do without you, Ellie?"

"You'd find a way." She kept a hand on his arm after they let go. "And hey, don't limit yourself to your own memories. I'm willing to donate some of mine. Sarah's been like a sister to me for a long time now."

"You'd give up memories for her?"

"Of course. I'm sure your other friends would do the same."

Chuck couldn't imagine asking for a favor like that, but if it would help Sarah . . . "You really think they'd be willing to do it?"

Ellie beamed. "I'm positive."


	3. Donations

It wasn't going to be perfect.

Even in the best of cases, the memories they would give to Sarah would be disconnected and strangely disembodied for her. Chuck tested it out by having Morgan give him a couple of memories of the two of them; seeing his own face in the memory rather than Morgan's was uncomfortable at best, and downright disconcerting at worst.

He figured that they might be able to get around that by including lots of memories that didn't include too much of her own face. Testing with Morgan, it was a lot easier to process the memories where there were lots of people around and Chuck's own face was just one in the crowd. Memories where he and Morgan had both been focused on something else were even better, and memories where Chuck had been out of the room felt almost as natural as if they were his own memories—though any memories where Morgan had been talking or thinking about Chuck felt like he'd been eavesdropping, which took a little getting used to.

Another challenge was that, regardless of how many or few memories Chuck gave to Sarah, they wouldn't _share_ any. They'd each have one half of the complete picture, constantly telling stories and making references the other didn't understand. It didn't seem like a way to rebuild a relationship, but still, it was better than Sarah having no memories at all.

* * *

Ellie was the first to donate memories. Chuck vented about his concerns regarding the lack of shared memories while she was getting ready to make her donation, but Ellie said that she didn't think it would be as much of a problem as he was thinking.

"Chuck, we've had so many dinners and parties with family and friends, don't you think they'll be willing to give up a few moments so that the two of you can remember some of the same things?"

Chuck swallowed. "You'd be willing to spare a Thanksgiving or a Christmas Eve?"

"I'll give her a few highlights from every one I've spent with her. I'll try to focus on moments I was looking at your face instead of hers. Hope you don't mind if I give her a couple of your corny jokes."

"Sure," Chuck said, "but I'm gonna tell you those dumb jokes all over again."

She sighed. "Of course you are."

Chuck smirked, but his face became serious again. "I really appreciate you doing this, Ellie."

"Of course! Hm, let me think about what else I can give her . . ." Ellie paced beside the chair, arms crossed. "Um, we did a lot of wedding planning together. We spent weeks looking at dresses, flowers, venues, decorations. We talked about you, but a lot of times we were both just looking at whatever was in front of us."

"And you remember it all clearly enough to donate it?"

"Not all of it, no." Ellie smiled. "But there are a few moments I want her to have."

* * *

Chuck wanted to be able to give Sarah his memories of their wedding, but they wouldn't make much sense to her from his perspective, since he'd spent most of the day looking at her face. Aside from that, he was more than a little hesitant about losing his own memory of the biggest day of his life.

He was surprised when Morgan offered his memory of the wedding.

"Oh, no, I couldn't ask you to give that up, man," Chuck said.

"Are you kidding me? It's an _honor_ to do this. I get to give her the best gift of everyone."

"But you won't remember your best friend getting married. I can get that memory from someone else."

"Dude. I officiated your wedding. I had the best view in the house. And besides, I'm the only one who can give her the emotional impact of the moment, unless you ask Ellie—and she shouldn't have to lose the memory of her brother's wedding." He looked Chuck right in the eyes. "Please. Let me give this to Sarah."

Chuck frowned, but finally he nodded. "I really appreciate it, buddy."

"Yeah, no problem, man! Only . . . I was wondering if maybe I could give her some movies. Some things she would have seen in the past few years, but now she's forgotten. You know, save her some time?"

Chuck resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "You just want to forget about Star Wars so you can see it for the first time again."

Morgan sighed. "It was worth a try."

Chuck clapped him on the shoulder. "Let's stay focused, buddy."

"Copy that, Agent Bartowski." Morgan settled into the chair.

* * *

Captain Awesome said he would give a couple of snippets from family get-togethers, but he ended up giving more individual memories than anyone else, other than Chuck himself. Chuck was astonished when Devon kept asking for the glasses again. "Don't you want to . . . to leave something for yourself?"

Devon shrugged. "Yeah, bro, but I want to give her the best moments."

"How do you even have any memories left?"

He tapped his head. "Steel trap, my man. Helped a lot with med school."

"Okay, well, I really appreciate it."

"Anything for Sarah. She's awesome. You chose well, my brother." He started to stand up, then sat back down and picked back up the glasses. "Hang on, just one more. I remembered something else."

* * *

Against all of Chuck's expectations, John Casey flew in to make a donation in person.

Chuck explained to him how the procedure worked. Casey just nodded and held a hand out for the glasses. He sat and stared in silence for several minutes, then handed back the glasses without a word and stood to go.

Chuck awkwardly trotted behind him as he headed out the door. "Ah, Casey? You want to tell me what you gave her?"

"She'll figure it out." Casey didn't stop walking, but he slowed down enough that Chuck was able to catch up to him and walk with him the rest of the way out to his car. Casey had changed a lot over the years, but some things never did.

"Ah. I see." Chuck swallowed—he trusted Casey with his life. He could trust him with a few private memories that he thought Sarah should have. "So, how goes the search? Did—did you find Gertrude?"

Casey just growled. Chuck wasn't sure if it meant that he hadn't had any luck yet, or if it was just a _Mind your own business_ kind of growl. But based on the almost-smile on Casey's face after he looked away, Chuck had a pretty good guess.

* * *

Over the course of the next month, Chuck reached out to as many people who had been around himself and Sarah as he could remember. Many of them never returned his calls, but a few who they had helped over the years came around with memories they were willing to part with.

His mom gave some celebratory moments over the past few years, as well as some ordinary days—she told Chuck that those were sometimes the most important. Unexpectedly, General Beckman came around and donated a couple of conversations she'd had with Chuck about Sarah that showed some of her progression, both personally and with regards to their relationship. Alex didn't have much to give since she hadn't spent much time around Sarah, but she was able to donate a couple of conversations from family get-togethers. Some of Sarah's old friends came by—like John Casey, Carina wouldn't tell Chuck what memories she was donating. Even some of the guys from the Buy More came around to drop a couple of memories, though Chuck was _very_ careful to thoroughly drill them on exactly what they were going to give before he gave them the glasses.

And all the while, Chuck chose carefully which memories he'd pass to Sarah.

Lucky for him, he'd practiced quite a lot of the speeches he'd made to her in the mirror, including his wedding vows; he donated as many of those rehearsals as he could so that her memory would allow her to look at his face rather than her own. He gave her some conversations he'd had with other people about her. He gave her half of the times he'd taken out that picture they drew of their dream house, and daydreamed about their future together. He gave her scattered moments from missions they'd been on together, and a few dates—movies, walks, sunsets, any time when he hadn't been looking at her face. And he did give her a few memories of herself, though he knew they would be disconcerting, just so she could experience a hint of what he felt every time she walked into a room.

He omitted anything physical. It would be too uncomfortable for her to remember kissing herself. They'd have to build those memories back up again over time—and Chuck was perfectly okay with that.


	4. Intersect

It had been almost five months since Sarah's memory loss when Chuck finished his project.

He loaded up all of the donated memories into a pair of glasses, placed them in a box, and wrapped it as carefully as he could. He'd taken notes on all of the memories he'd given, so he knew what he'd lost, but there was no trace of them in his own mind. He couldn't wait to hear about those moments from his wife.

The day he planned to give Sarah the final Intersect, Chuck left work to go home early. On his way home, he picked up a couple of bouquets of flowers, a nice bottle of wine, and as many fresh candles as he could carry.

It took him a couple of hours to get their house to look the way he wanted it, but when he was finished, he turned down the overhead lights so that the candles were the main source of light. The house was warm, sparkling clean, decorated with flowers and candles, and smelled amazing. He put on a suit and Sarah's favorite cologne, set the wrapped box down on their bed, and waited for her in the living room.

Sarah stopped short in the doorway when she arrived at home. Her eyes sparkled in the candlelight. "What's all this?"

Chuck smiled and held out his arm to her. "I have a little surprise for you."

"Chuck," she chided, taking his arm, "you know I don't like surprises. Or . . . did that change?"

"No, not really, but I think you're going to like this one."

He lead her down the hall into their room, following the trail of rose petals he'd left. She smiled warily at the wrapped box on the bed. He let her arm go, and she picked up the box. "Should I open it now?"

"Yes. Please."

She gently tore away the wrapping paper and opened the box. Her jaw dropped when she saw what was inside. "Chuck . . ."

"It's not like the other Intersects, it won't make you Flash. It won't undo the damage either. It's just . . . some memories we wanted you to have."

"We?"

"Me, and Ellie, and Devon, and Morgan, and just about all of the rest of our friends, Sarah. It's not perfect—we all lost all of the memories we donated. So . . . you'll have to tell us all about them."

"Chuck, you didn't have to do that for me!"

"I wanted to. How many times have you saved my life, Sarah? Do you have any idea how much happiness you've given me over the last few years? This time, it was my turn to do something for you."

Sarah turned over the glasses in her hands. "How long have you been working on this?"

"Since a couple weeks after you agreed to be my wife again. Sarah, I couldn't leave things like they were. You're everything to me, and with you having lost everything we've been through together . . ."

She pressed her lips together and nodded, taking a deep breath and sitting down on the bed before putting on the glasses. "What do I do now?"

"Ah, here." He tapped the frames, and she gave a small start. "There you go."

It took hours.

Chuck sat beside her and held her hand throughout the whole thing. Watching her reactions was a joy in itself. She sat in wide-eyed wonder through most of it; she burst out laughing quite a few times, a more real laugh than he'd heard from her in a long time; she shed tears more than once.

Finally, the glasses went dark again. Sarah slowly took them off her face, wiped the last tears away, and turned to Chuck. "I . . . I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything."

She reached out and kissed him, deeply. And finally, finally, it was the kiss he remembered.

When she pulled away, he took her face in his hand.

"Now, Mrs. Bartowski," he said. "I think it's time for you to tell _me_ a story."

_End_


End file.
